You know its tourist "low season" or that you are out of the tourist route (the Gringo Trail as they call it here) when you can wake up calmly, have breakfast, pack and just walk to the bus station and hop on the next bus to Piura. What a feeling!

It was a really short trip today. Only 2 hours 45 minutes. However it did give the bus company time to make us suffer through a terrible Jan Van Damme film (The Hard Corps - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0462329/ ). As Heineken would state..."probably the worst film in history".

There was little to see on the way to Piura except endless amounts of desert and sand dunes, but at least the trip was straight forward...yes, all straight, all forward.

From the pictures you will see a bit of our "action" out and about in Chiclayo last night

. We decided to return to "La Parra" for some more of their excellent food. Marcos ordered the "beef brochette" thinking it must have less amount of meat than the previous day (which was way over the top). However, the cook managed to stick half a cow onto the brochette with some ancient Moche culture ritual...still delicious.

Just when we were going to start to eat, 8 Mariachis (the mexican musicians) entered the restaurant and came to the table next to us. There a couple was drinking one of the more expensive brands of local wine, so both Veronika and myself suspected there was going to be a marriage proposal.

With the second song (love songs by the way), the Mariachi singer brought a vase with flowers and in the middle was a little box...the proposal ring. It was all quite emotional! The best part is that we had music all along our dinner!

There is also a couple of photographs of something Vero noticed hanging on the wall on top of Marcosī head. It was a deer, but not the classical part (the head), it was its arse with all its "testicalia" hanging out and its tail up, looking like it was going to release all its digestive content on Marcos

Back to Piura. Its a small town with little different to the rest (apart from the fact that I could use my Visa in the supermarket and it requested the PIN number...how exciting!). The hotel is good enough, clean, with nice sat tv for tonight and only for 50 Soles (11 euro) with ensuite bathroom. The reality is, we are just here to get the bus tomorrow to Ecuador (9am), so we will take it easy. We have bought some stuff in the supermarket and will relax watching a film in the hotel.

We did enjoy a new fruit...the Pipa, which is a larger sort of cocoa. They offer them in the streets for 1 Sol (25 cents Euro) and after you finish the juice with a straw they cut it open and you can eat the whole thing. Delicious.

Walking along the market we bumped into "8 sheep going in a taxi". They didnt do this voluntarily as they were tied up and shouting, but it was something we hadnīt seen before. We laughed at the thought of animal rights activists walking around this market and seeing the sheep being thrown into the taxi screaming like hell (see picture)

. Well over 30 degrees, so luckily the room has a fan. We have walked around the centre of the town (Plaza de Armas, Cathedral, Museum, etc), so "been there, done that".

Sadly it will be "adios" to Peru tomorrow, but we are looking forward to Ecuador. We have made a little change in our plans and will finally not go to Guayaquil to try to book a trip to Galapagos. We know the minimum price will be about USD 1,000 per person and we are not willing to go into that expense at this stage of the trip. We know Galapagos will always be there and it is a well connected destination from Europe...so that one for the future when we come back some day to Venezuela, Colombia, Guyanes and Brazil.

So our plan is to cut directly into Ecuador via the Southern border of Macara which leads us directly to great trekking areas in Loja and Vilcabamba. Thatīs if we can get rid of all the fake coins we have collected along the road! They all seem identical to us (except the fake ones are slightly used on the side), but we hope we can release them to some unexpecting salesperson...if not someone will receive about 50 cents counterfeit tip!

It might take us a couple of day to update our blog again. So until then enjoy the weekend!